‘Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of YHWH for ever.'
And accompanying the shepherd are His two faithful ‘sheepdogs', ‘Goodness'' and ‘Lovingkindness'. Their names reveal the very heart of the Shepherd. For His people are continually trailed by goodness and lovingkindness, on the one hand full provision for their spiritual needs (how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him - Matthew 7:11) and on the other fullness of compassion in the way (‘I have loved you with an everlasting love' - Jeremiah 31:3; ‘in this is love, not that we love Him, but that He loved us, and that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins' - 1 John 4:10). This ensures that they walk in wholesome ways, where their Shepherd can be found, and where goodness and lovingkindness can be found, and where they can be sure of His tenderness towards them even when they fail.
This indeed is the test of whether they are His sheep. They walk in conjunction with goodness and lovingkindness. Many love the idea of being trailed by lovingkindness, but they are not so sure about goodness. They certainly want to be loved, and they do not mind being average, but they do not want to be good (they speak of such people derisively as do-gooders'). But God is good, and He expects goodness from His people, for He knows that without true goodness they can never be really happy. They are to let their light so shine before men, that they see their good works and glorify their Father Who is in Heaven (Matthew 5:16).
‘And I will dwell in the house of YHWH for ever.' This is not to switch his thoughts directly to the Temple or Tabernacle, even though the latter might be in the background of his thoughts as the sacred Dwellingplace of YHWH. He visualises rather the house of feasting as previously described. It is YHWH's house where the banquet is ever in progress, comparable, though on a larger scale, with the king's palace. And there will His people feast with Him for ever, both in this world and the next. (In Israel feasting around the Dwellingplace (Tabernacle) of YHWH was a feature of the major feasts, even for many who could not actually enter the Tabernacle. They too felt that they had ‘entered the house of YHWH'). As the Psalmist says elsewhere, ‘They will be abundantly satisfied with the luxurious provision of Your house, and You will make them drink of the rivers of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life, in Your light shall we see life' (Psalms 36:8-9). ‘For ever.' It is true that this can mean simply ‘into the distant future'. But that is the point. As in Psalms 16 he cannot visualise a time when he is separated from YHWH. Such a thought seems impossible to him. For in the end he carries within himself the thought of immortality, he has everlastingness in his heart (Isaiah 57:15; Ecclesiastes 3:11 - ‘He has set eternity (‘owlam) in his heart').